


HSWC 2014: br4 fills

by Mags



Series: HSWC 2014 [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:18:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2574575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mags/pseuds/Mags
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets from HSWC 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HSWC 2014: br4 fills

**Author's Note:**

> http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/21508.html?thread=6276356#cmt6276356
> 
> Eridan/Rose
> 
> Don't know the name of this archtype: a normal human steals something from a magical being forcing them to stay in human mode. The human and the magical being get married and have children and live happily ever after until the magical being gets their item back and abscounds back home with the half-magic children.

Oh god, oh god, you’re really going to die this time. You pull your cloak off, hoping that maybe opposable fingers could do something, and the shift actually _hurts_ like being torn in half.

You look down at the gash nearly all the way through your torso and you’re really bleeding--the sand is turning red and there’s a tongue of it going out to sea. And, oh god, you can actually see your guts in there. You sink back down into the sand and your heart is going a mile a minute in your chest, all fast and fluttery.

At least it doesn’t hurt much anymore. Everything’s getting all fuzzy and faraway when you hear the crunch of footsteps approaching you over the sand.

Someone’s silhouette obscures the sun and all you can really see are bright violet eyes. “Oh dear,” she says coolly. “It looks like you’re in quite the mess.”

*

When you wake up it’s with a start, like you’d started to fall and caught yourself. There’s something wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

You’re in a human bed, soft and enveloping, in a human house. You’re only mildly surprised to look down at your stomach and see a thin, well-healed scar where there should be a substantial wound--things are weird enough as-is.

A human woman pokes her head in and smiles slightly. “Good morning,” she says. She has those piercing violet eyes you remember from earlier. “What’s your name?”

“Eridan,” you say. “How did you…?” You gesture vaguely to your midsection.

Her smile becomes more mischievous. “A story for a later date.”

You realize what’s missing--your cloak. Now that you’re healed up you just want to pull it on and slip back into the water ( _Fef must be so worried_ , you think). You want to ask her where it is but you… can’t. It’s like whatever turns thoughts into words has just shut off completely.

*

Her name is Rose and she is a mage. She lives on a cliff overlooking the sea ( _Thank god_ , you think, _if I wasn’t by the sea I don’t know how I would survive_ ), near the beach where you washed up.

You don’t know much more than that. You can’t leave the house--whenever you try you just _can’t_ \--and you can’t go into the room she’s got locked up in the attic. You can’t really say no to her either; whatever she wants, she gets.

Thankfully she doesn’t want much. You are her doting selkie husband when she wants it and the rest of the time you can stare out to sea, never saying any of the things you think.

The kids come soon enough, a girl and a boy. They have her pale hair and just a hint of that purple in their eyes. And you are a doting selkie husband to them too, watching for any sign that they are shapeshifters like you.

*

Then, one night she’s passed out drunk and leaves the door to the attic room open.

The room is small and windowless, with a few circles ringed with strange symbols painted on the floor and a single chest in the back.

You are drawn toward the chest and this time you can actually act on it as you slowly, reverently open the lid.

There is your cloak folded in the bottom, along with two other smaller ones. When you touch it, you could just cry for happiness. You haven’t cried at all in the last seven years, and you have a lot of tears stored up. But right now you won’t allow yourself to.

She could wake up any minute and realize her mistake.

So you take your cloak and the kids’ and leave that tiny room, drawn to the sea like a magnet. The kids look up at you with wide eyes, clutching their cloaks like safety blankets, slowly realizing what they are.

It is not a fond farewell that you bid Rose when you slip back under the waves.


End file.
